Mimir Chamber Music Festival

The 16th annual celebration of chamber music in Fort Worth was a homecoming as Curt Thompson, formerly professor of violin at TCU, who now heads the string program at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music in Australia, returned to perform with a stellar cadre of string players. Joining Thompson were violinist Frank Huang of the Houston Symphony Orchestra, violist Kirsten Docter, who plays in the Cavani String Quartet, and Brant Taylor, a cellist in the Chicago Symphony. The festival was heavy on Beethoven but also mixed in whimsical American and Hungarian folk songs.

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PianoTexas International Academy & Festival

Highlighting the 2013 festival was 22-year-old Juilliard School standout Jiayan Sun, who gave a captivating performance of the Beethoven Fourth Piano Concerto. Joining him was Cheng Zhang, who made his fourth appearance here in as many years, and 19-year-old Xuesha Hu of China, the youngest performer of the festival. TCU student and Young Artist, Nozomi Iwai, listens to Andrea Bonatta, Artistic Director and Chairman of the Busoni Piano Competition and one of this year’s Van Cliburn Competition jurors.

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Trinity Shakespeare Festival

The Bard was back for its fifth season in June at TCU, as Trinity Shakespeare Festival took on the comedy The Taming of the Shrew and tragedy Julius Caesar. Festival favorites Trisha Miller as Kate and Chuck Huber as Petruchio in Shrew, directed by TCU’s T.J. Walsh, while Richard Haratine played the brutal Brutus in the gory rendition of repeat guest director Stephen Fried.